About guns, coffee, and all the other stuff I feel like talking about.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Freezing rain, sleet, and lighting so close it scrambled the radio in my car on the way home. I had to chip off at least a quarter inch of ice on the windshield just so I could get going, and thankfully I made it home before it got too covered again (the wipers are still under about an inch...) And I have to work at 7am. Welcome to spring in Wisconsin.

A while back I was looking for a small rig to carry a few AR mags and a couple handgun mags. Nothing complex, just a way to carry ammo and avoid the gear overload a full out load bearing vest can generate. A good chest rig.

A while back I snagged a Chinese AK chest rig for under $10.

It's the best photo I can find... but it's a rather ubiquitous item.

It's a great set-up, in theory. Three 30 round AK mags, and four grenade pouches. I don't regularly carry grenades, so those pouches are usually empty though (except when I dressed up as an Afghan for Halloween. Then they were great for my wallet and cell... Man-Jammies don't have pockets...)

Most importantly, it's simple, and hold just enough for a quick response scenario. I actually tend to keep it in the trunk of my car, as a WASR makes a great trunk gun. My only complaint is that there's no way of swapping out at least a couple of the grenade pouches for a couple pistol mag holders of some sort without extensive modification of the rig (OK, not that extensive, but not MOLLE convenient.)

So I decided that I wanted a small rig for 3-4 AR mags, in single holders (ever try going prone with double pouches?) and at minimum, one spare double-stack 9mm mag. MOLLE is great, since modularity is dang nice, and if I were to switch from an AR to something else, I would only need to swap pouches instead of the whole rig.

So I poked around the ol' interwebs, and in a mildly round-about way, came to the Tactical Tailor's web store. Tactical Tailor was not a new name to me, and I doubt to many others. They've built up a good reputation for putting out quality American made gear, and backing that gear with great service.

What was new to me was their "Mini-MAV" chest rig platform. A simple MOLLE platform slightly smaller than the trusty Chinese rig, but sporting a ton of improvements. So I ordered me up some Multicam goodness and looked forward to the brown truck of happiness dropping it off in a couple weeks.

First impressions are everything, and the Mini-MAV did not disappoint. Read more after the jump-